Audi, a German company, has been owned
by Volkswagen since 1966. The company's logo (four interlaced
circles) is actually based on the four car companies that banded
together in 1932.
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| August Horch |
August Horch founded A. Horch & Cie
on November 14, 1899. However, he was forced out only a few years
later after a dispute with his supervisory board. He went on to
create Horch Automobil-Weke GmbH but was then
told by a court he was banned from using the trade name Horch. He
invited a few friends over to come up with a new name. One made the
connection that Horch, which means “listen”, can be translated to
“Audi” in Latin.
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| 1910 Audi Type A |
Horch left his new
Audi company in 1920 for a position at the ministry of transport, but
remained on the board. In 1932, Audi merged with Horch, DKW, and
Wanderer to become Auto Union and the four ring logo was adopted.
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| 1929-1932 Audi Zwickau |
The economic crisis
in Germany prior to World War II though forced Audi to disappear from
the new car market for more than 20 years. The plant was then used
for military production and in 1949, the company restarted assembly
of pre-war models in a damaged factory.
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| 1970 Audi 100 |
In 1958, the
company was owned by Daimler-Benz and the Audi name was only used
again on a new car in 1965. Volkswagen then completely owned the
company in 1966 and has owned in since. In the 90s, Audi began to
shift its market to compete with Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Today, sales
continue to increase for the Audi company and reported record sales
in 2011.
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| Click to see our 2008 Audi A6! |
Sources: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi; CarType, http://cartype.com/pages/189/audi; Classic Cars Today Online, http://www.classiccarstodayonline.com/2012/04/27/youre-an-audi-fan-then-you-should-know-about-the-ingolstadt-factory-museum/1910-audi-type-a-x/; Georg Sander Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/geralds_1311/6214101101/; Mad 4 Wheels, http://www.mad4wheels.com/contents/model.asp?id_car=4115
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